Enrichment Of One's Soul

Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, pt. I., tr. Hans Hong and Edna Hong, (Princeton, 1987), The Immediate Erotic Stages, pp. 60-61:

What one has come to know piece by piece, just as a bird gleans each little straw for itself, happier over each little bit than over all the rest of the world; what the loving ear, solitary, has absorbed, solitary in the great crowd, unnoticed in its secret hiding place; what the avid ear has picked up, never satisfied, what the avaricious ear has preserved, never secure, of which the faintest echo has never disappointed the sleepless attention of the reconnoitering ear; what one has lived in during the day and relived at night, what has driven away sleep and made it restless, what one has dreamed about in sleep, what one has awakened to in order awake to dream about it again, for the sake of which one has leaped out of bed in the middle of the night out of fear of forgetting it; what has made its appearance to one in the most inspired moments, what one has always had at hand like a woman’s needlework, what has accompanied one on bright moonlit nights, in lonely forests by the lake, on gloomy streets, in the middle of the night, at the break of day; what has sat with one on the same horse, what has been company in the carriage; what has permeated the home, what one’s room has witnessed, what has resonated in the ear, what has reverberated in the soul, what the soul has spun into its finest fabric—this now shows itself to thought. Just as in the old tales those enigmatic beings, draped in seaweed, rise up from the bottom of the sea, so this rises up from the sea of recollection, intertwined with mementos. The soul becomes sad and the heart mellow, for it is as if one were taking leave of it, as if one were parting never to meet again, neither in time nor in eternity. One feels that one is being unfaithful, that one has betrayed one’s pact; one feels that one is no longer the same, not as young, not as childlike; one fears for oneself, that one will lose what made one happy, blissful, and rich; one fears for what one loves, that it will suffer in this change, will perhaps appear less perfect, that it will possibly fail to answer the many questions, alas, and then all is lost, the magic is gone, and it can never again be evoked. As for Mozart’s music, my soul knows no fear, my confidence no limits. For one thing, what I have understood hitherto is only very little, and enough will always remain, hiding in the shadows of presentiment . . .